China Is Near

Vittorio, a political science lecturer from an aristocratic family, is standing as a socialist candidate in the municipal elections. His sister and his younger brother are each after their own arrangements. Vittorio's secretary and his accountant, meanwhile, have a plan of their own: to marry into the family and be comfortable. Marco Bellocchio's second film mocks Italian politics of the sixties from the inside. Catholic morality, electoral calculation and Maoist slogans written on walls collide in the same house and at the same table. Nobody is loyal to their ideology; everyone is trying to hold on to their position. It won the Special Jury Prize at Venice in 1967 and became the second part of Bellocchio's reckoning with the bourgeoisie.